Masteries

Offense:
21

Defense:
9

Utility:
0

Chapter 1

I personaly hated this char after i first met it on lvl 10 or something like that. Annoying champion with burst damage and that grand skyfall teleport all the time.

After some time (on lvl 20ish) i bought the champion and played some. Didnt like it much since i had no clue WTF to do with him. Saw plenty Pantheons playing like **** and i had no idea how to play him on my own. I thrown that champion away, untill i reached lvl 30 and i got some runes.
I got some expirience with champions and game mechanics by that time, also played a better higher elo players and got an idea of a build for him. I ran some test, and accualy that created a 1-2-3 char that omgwtfhaxxpwned everything that moved.
I would like to introduce here my way of playing this champion witch i use when i farm for IP (for new 6300IP champions for example)
We have usualy games that end on 25min /surrender mark. If you got fed early/mid game there is absolutly no stopping you. Even tanks drop dead in matter of seconds which has significant infuence on other team morale. Flamers will turn on when you fed yourself and start flaming all others in their team calling n00bs, team fail or ragequitting making games even faster.
Fun to see.

With recent changes to panth and making his spear shot cost 1/3 more mana, you have to pick between nerfing yourself with mana/mana regen item or just sacrificing a summoner spell for mana issues. I choose to take Clarity and still go for max AD build without mana regen. Works great. The only weak part of it is when you pick more standard Ghost/Clense combo. But with latest clense nerfs ppl tend to drop that, i suggest dropping that for clense so Clarity/Ghost is still very viable.

Aaaand it solves any mana problems till late game, where mana is no longer an issue, just take care of your teammates and replenish their Mana pool if they need it more than you.

Flash

Great to last hit, chase, escape... I am playing flash with almost all my champions, this is not an exeption.

Other picks:

cleanse

cleanse is considered a great spell for every melee champion. Can save your *** can open you window for attack. Worth getting.
Your choice. I always go Flash/Clarity.

Ghost

A great pick if you prefer it instead of flash.

Heal

Great spell if you realy want that 1st blood. But after recent changes his mana uneffectivity early game is just HUGE. I swapped to play from heal to clarity.

Skills

Aegis Protection - After attacking or casting spells 4 times, Pantheon will block the next normal attack that deals more than 40 damage to him.

Great and very usefull passive. It will trigger on each 4 hits (including spear throwing and so on) making you able to block 100% of next "physical" atack. You should always have it up, and avoid getting hit by tank minions which will trigger the shield. Small minions will buypass the shield and accualy deal damage leaving shield active for more damaging abilities.
You can block tower shots so blocking 2 tower shots (1 shield on you and getting 1 after jumping) is a great way to towerdive without risking ANY HP. It is also a great forgiving tool for new players that are not yet familiar with towerdiving and tower range/damage.

Spear Shot - Pantheon hurls his spear at an opponent.
Pantheon hurls his spear at an opponent dealing 30/40/50/60/70 + 100/115/130/145/160 percent of his attack in physical damage.

Cooldown - 4 seconds
Cost - 45 Mana
Range - 600

Your main harrasing ability. The range is wide enaugh to harras ranged chars. Damage is HUGE since it is scaling 100% of your AD from lvl 1. It is considered a physical attack so it takes all benefits from ArP, but in the same takes all penalities from rising Armor later in game. Mana cost is very low for the damage it deals. With enaugh ArP early game lvl 1 of this skill can take up to 1/4 of your opponent hp. Later on it is used to constantly harras while preparing for team battle, to lower down tougher enemies health from a distance and to finish off escapers. Very low cd. Great scaling with your AD.

Aegis of Zeonia - Pantheon leaps at an enemy and bashes the enemy with his shield, stunning them. After finishing the attack, Pantheon readies himself to block the next attack.
Pantheon leaps at the target enemy champion and deals 50/75/100/125/150 (+1) magic damage and stuns them for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 second(s). Pantheon also instantly refreshes his Aegis Protection.

Cooldown - 12 seconds
Cost - 70 Mana
Range - 600

This is your initiate tool, and also the thing that holds your enemy in place while you perform your Heartseeker. Good to catch chasers, to stop channeled spells, or even deny for example fiddle doing his ultimate before he finishes the casting. Damage of this spell is marginal, scales with ability power which we are not gonna have at all. All we care about is the stun and instant aegis proc. Eventho this is quite mana expensive you should always use it on your primary target before casting heartseeker.

Heartseeker Strike - Pantheon focuses and unleashes 5 swift strikes to the area in front of him, dealing double damage to champions. Pantheon also becomes more aware of his enemy's vital spots, allowing him to always crit enemies below 15% health.

Oh god... this one... The nightmares and the only reason why Pantheon wears a DO NOT FEED sign on his neck. A fast 5 attacks that scale INSANELY with your AD. This skill does double damage to champions. If you fed yourself, you are accualy unstoppable. You are just stacking 1 stat and ganking everything that moves with this particular skill.
The skill is simple but deadly. In a small cone (more or less same as annie Incinirate) you will hit everything 5 times. Damage is calculated constantly (chanelled skill), and it is considered a physical damage witch gets lowered by armor. But as it is a skill you cant stop it via blinding. This skill can be stopped by stunning you (animation will not cancel but you will deal 0 damage) same occurs if you get silenced while performing this skill.
The usage of the skill is simple. Jump with stun, already while in air smash your heartseeker button and start aiming with your mouse. The click should apear right after you land the stun to maximize the chance of getting 100% damage on target. Usualy ppl will run away through whole heartseeker. I saw plenty Pantheons that accualy after jump they were hitting 1-3 times before performing Heartseeker coz they wanted to finish of with heartseeker. When they did it they wasted alot of damage going into air coz ppl were running away from it without the stun part. Try to use it ALWAYS after the stun. On teamfights pick the closest target and try to aim the heartseeker into the group. Simple as that.
This skill is a MANA HOG early game. DO NOT i repeat DO NOOOT use it unnessesary to harras or farm mobs early game. This guide skips the Chalice of Harmony so you will be mana starved early game if you do so. We are focusing on your power.

The passive part is GREAT for last hitting minions. And great to finish of a champion that survived the WEQ combo.

Grand Skyfall - Pantheon composes himself then leaps into the air to a target, striking all enemy units in an area. Enemies closer to the impact point take more damage.
Pantheon gathers his strength and then leaps high into the air, crashing down at the target area a few seconds later. Deals up to 400/700/1000 (+1) magic damage to units at the center (down to 33% at the edge) and slows them by 35% for 1 second.

Cooldown - 150/135/120 seconds
Cost - 150/250/350 Mana
Range - Global

This is the only skill that takes accualy skill to perform good.
The area of effect is huge but also small enaugh to run away from it. Try to target a stationary target coz even with boots +3 you are unable to escape it on foot if you are in center of the circle.
In Early game this should be used only from spawn. This will ensure that the whole skill witch is VERY MANA COSTY be performed for absolutly no mana cost. Why? Mana cost is taken at the begining of the channeling, and before you end up charging up you will have a full refund of mana from replenishment your spawn provides.
It takes some prractice and anticipation to master the skill but if you miss, its not a big deal. Just dont rush 1v5 with it :P try to find lonely sheeps and award yourself with a free kill :).

A tip. Right after you cast your ulti on that person, enable your jump-stun skill and when you see that green circle at full size already click on your target, this will speed up the animation of the jump-stun and it might be a bug or glitch but you can accualy jump before the whole ulti animation has ended awarding you a slightly better chances of still beeing in range of stun.

Masteries

I follow the 21/9/0 build. With improved heal in defensive masteries and 4/4 Sorcery for CDR and 3/4 in Alacrity. You can also go with more mana effective 15/1/14 without lethality and 1 point in alacrity, 1 in heal and res on mana regen masteries in utility.
I prefer the 21/9/0 one since even without the crit statistic from items we still have that heartseeker autocrit which will benefit from lethality.

We get Mres instead of cdr coz of no escape mechanism on the champion so we will be in need of soaking some magic damage anyway :/.

Items

CORE

Clarification:

Ok on the loading screen you saw enemy champions. You have to calculate how offensive you can and with who are you going to lane with. Rarely you will be going mid.
1st of all you not nessesary want to go mid. You have only 1 person to kill there, which may slow down your progression. Your ulti is not that important. So if you have anyone that wants to go mid, let him/her.
You always start with: Long Sword
It is a great item to boost your spear attacks and we want to have a nice AD base. This is the best you can get. Aaaaand we will swap it for something better anyway ASAP.
Now the question is about the pot you will take. Health Potion Mana Potion
I suggest going with health pot at start, when you get some expirience you can risk getting mana potion.
Stay in lane up to lvl 6, or at least try to. This is essencial. At lvl 6 port to base and:

2. If not buy: Sword of the Occult
Skip boots as 1st item since you wont need it. Stacking this item will significantly boost your AD, and this is the ONLY stat we want. The reason why I suggest skipping it when you have enaugh for BF Sword is that BF gives 50AD instantly (and sword gives that after 5 kills). You will benefit ALOT more from a single BF sword early game much more than from the sword of occult through whole game. And you are not afraid of loosing stacks. Eventho Sword of Occult gives 110AD at the end it takes alot of time to stack it. and we will make that BF Sword into Bloodthirster which gives 100AD anyway. But in MOOOOST cases you won't be so fortunate to get enaugh gold on lvl 6 to buy the BF right away. You can visit the shop right after you gather cash for making Sword of Occult to maximize the time and kills you get with it. And this should be the only reason to leave lane before lvl 6.

Next stop will be trying to stay in lane enaugh time to buy: Boots of Swiftness + The Brutalizer.
I find boots of speed the best choice since the AS boost from zerkers is realy marginal and
We want ArP ArP ArP! That is the reason of brutalizer. It gives everything we need. AD, ArP and CDR. Shiny. DO NOT change it to Yoyo blade! it is not worth it! save as much gold as you can to rush for B. F. Sword B. F. Sword B. F. Sword.
THIS IS ESSENCIAL! Do not make anything out of em. Ultill you get 3 of them. NEVER! Alaways save cash to buy another and another and another. It is the best investment in AD per gold.
We dont want lifesteal, or crit or anything. WE WANT PURE AD!.
When you finish your core. You can make items out of those BF swords. I highly recomend doing: The Bloodthirster The Bloodthirster The Bloodthirster
out of them. Why? Well It has the highest ingame AD (not counting the occult 20 stacks) and it gives lifesteal. So you will heal ALOT with them with such powerfull melee blows.
When you are done with all those items, and accualy the team still doesnt surrender or game is running... you may swap The Brutalizer into: Youmuu's Ghostblade.
Do this ONLY AND I SAY ONLY when you have finished your 3 bloodthirsters.

Situational items:

If enemy team has a tank with high armor or you went for BF instead of Occult as 1st item you can take: Last Whisper for additional Armor Penetration.

Playstyle

Your playstyle is plain and simple. You look for lonely champions early/mid game and snipe them to feed yourself. You are even able to take down a tank with ease. Just make sure he is lonely. Feed Feed Feed. it is all you need to do. If it takes into late game, you will shine a bit less since you are not a DPS char. Wait with going into battles after 1st cc'es are casted than Heartseek whole team into oblivion.

Early game

Lvl 1: Take spear and try to get 1st blood. Than try to last hit minions with constant harrasment of Spear Shot. Try not to go below 50% mana before you reach lvl 3. Make extreme usage of your Aegis Passive. Try to hit 4 times, than spear shot. If the shield is not destroyed, spear shot on cd. If the shield is destroyed, get a new one, and harras again. Remember that spear shot will act as one of those 4 shots. Take in mind tank mobs will get your shield removed. Avoid getting hit by those.

Lvl 3: You have your combo ready. Targets are low on hp coz of constant spear harrasment. You have your 50% mana. At least Flash ready. You are g2g to start killing. MAKE ABSOLUTLY SURE that you have enaugh mana for whole combo (just add the numbers 30+70+X where X is the Mana cost of your accualy Heartseeker Strike lvl) and go! Stun->Heartseeker->Spear if the target is still alive bot barely, even towerdive with flash and last hit him with crit or run and flash out from the turret. If you dont get your 1st kill on lvl 3 you are srsly doing something wrong :).

Repeat untill lvl 6. On lvl 6 port to base.

Mid game

Mid game starts for you on lvl 6. It doesnt matter if you did take the tower down or not. On lvl 6 you should stand on the spawn and wait. Wait for good jump place. Even if you have to wait for 20 sek just do it. When you see a good ocasion. Jump from the spawn for free of mana cost Grand Skyfall and get your next kill. Try to roam around and kill champions as much as possible. Port to base to replenish mana and to get a free of mana cost Ulti. Try to avoid using Ulti not from the spawn. You will be VERY mana uneffective and you need alot of mana for your full stun->heart->spear combo. Only jump for sure kills that wont need much additional damage if jumping not from spawn. Late game shouldnt appear often but...

Late game

Now if you are fed... no problem. Got 3x BF or even swapped some into Bloodthirsters. Just repeat what you did but on teamfitghts you cant initiate anymore. You will easily get CCed and eventualy focused dead bringing nothing to the fight. Instead wait for tank to initiate and try to spear shot fiew times to wait most of the cces to already land, when you feel its considerably safe, stun the closes target (or the best placed one for furhter heartseeker) and do a devastating Heartseeker into whole team sending as much enemies to the graveyard as possible with that single Heartseeker. Maximize the small AoE damage you can do. Dont be shy to run away. Remember that after your combo you will be pretty much VERY vurneable to focus and end up dead loosing stacks. If you feel safe just melee them down if not, try to get distance and support team with your devastating Spear shots untill your Stun+Heartseeker combo is ready again.

Things to consider

Be realy carefull around silence champions even soraka. A single silence while performing heartseeker will end up dealing NO DAMAGE at all, and very vurneable to further gank.

You can arm yourself with additional mana pots after you get your 1st BF sword, to give you that little mana pool boost while roaming in mid game. I find buying 3 pots enaugh for whole mid game. In late game mana begins to be a marginal problem.

Try to get Golem buff as much as possible in mid game. It will lower your CD on stun+Heartseeker but also make you mana undependant.